22 / CHRONICLESnals’ sexual behavior that sets them apart from society,nhomosexuals rarely discuss this publicly. Their desire fornrespectability masks their obsession with sexual gratificationnas such, regardless of the degradation of both their and theirnsex partners’ individuality. By their own accounts, theynendlessly engage in furtive, promiscuous, and impersonalnsex with utter strangers in public men’s rooms, parks,nbathhouses, and elsewhere. Some have reported having asnmany as 10 different sex partners during an evening, and inn1978 Bell and Weinberg found that 43 percent of thenhomosexuals in their study had more than 500 different sexnpartners in a lifetime.nAs for homosexual couples, it is well-known and acknowledgednamong them that infidelity is their norm. Peter Fishern(1978) has candidly written that homosexual “love” is nonlonger expected to hinge on fidelity. As we are now aware, itnis their sexual promiscuity that is largely responsible for thenhigh rate of venereal and other diseases among homosexuals,nas well as for the AIDS epidemic that has struck themnand, through bisexuals, threatens the rest of us.nIn the name of their right to indulge themselves inndepersonalized sex, homosexuals have mounted a strongnattack on the family as an indispensable institution. In 1971,nfor example, Dennis Altman, a leading and articulatenhomosexual spokesman, envisaged sexual liberation as puttingnan end to monogamy and “the nuclear family as thencentral organizing principle of society.” Altman believes inncommunal child-rearing that would involve nonparentnadults, including homosexuals. Such arrangements, henargues, are the only effective ways of breaking down thensex-role stereotypes into which the nuclear family “tends tonforce us.”nHomosexuals now openly devalue marriage and family,nproper child-rearing, and heterosexuality by insisting thatnthey, too, are entitled to marry, retain custody of theirnchildren after divorce, and to adopt children. A few clergymennand more than a few judges accord them thesenrights—the clergy believing in the religious entitlement tonmarriage, the judges either out of fear or because they donnot know of persuasive grounds for denying them childncustody.nWhile most homosexuals apparently have not married,nnumbers of them have been married as bisexuals and hadnchildren. Bell and Weinberg (1978) reported that almost 20npercent of the male homosexuals and one third of thenfemale homosexuals in their study had been married, somenhoping that marriage would somehow cure them of theirnvice. Those who yield to it ordinarily divorce their spouses,ncausing tremendous shock and loss.nTheir children, for example, somehow try to adjust to ancustodial mother who dates women and may have a live-innlesbian lover. Others must visit a homosexual father who hasnleft theiil and their mother for another man. All suchnyoungsters are unreasonably expected to understand andnapprove the meaning and implications of a parent’s homosexuality.nYet this surely eludes the grasp of youngernchildren, and is by no means well-understood by adolescentsn— or necessarily accepted by any of them. Indeed, a parentnannouncing his homosexuality can weaken or badly confusenchildren’s sense of their own gender identity—“will thisnhappen to me?”nnnThe total population of homosexuals is unknown and cannonly be estimated. If the most commonly mentionednpercentage of male and female homosexuals in the population—n2 percent (the figure ranges up to 10 percent) — isnused, and if the most frequently cited ratio of homosexualitynbetween the sexes (four males to one female) is alsonaccepted, then there are approximately 748,000 male andnfemale homosexuals in the population of unmarriednindividuals (37.4 million) from age 18 to 64. Of these,nslightly more than 598,000 are males and 149,000 arenfemales. Since the latter cancel out the same number of thenformer, there are about 449,000 male homosexuals whondeplete the ranks of marriageable men. Therefore, there aren449,000 marriageable women who will remain single sonlong as their and the male homosexual populations remainnconstant.nIf the homosexual population is estimated at 3 percent, itsntotal is slightly over 1.22 million, of which almost 890,000nare male and about 220,000 are female. Canceling out thenfemales with an equal number of males results in thenbalance of nearly 667,000 male homosexuals—the samennumber of heterosexual females who will, because of thisndepletion of the population of marriageable males, remainnunmarried. Whichever figure is used, a huge number ofnwomen are deprived of the opportunity to lead satisfyingnlives within marriage and family.nNumbers of homosexuals remain religiously observant,nand a few Christian and Jewish religious institutions welcomenthem either by holding special services or establishingnspecial houses of worship for them, or by accepting themninto their congregations. Nevertheless, the homosexuals’ndrive to win moral legitimacy must attempt to render bothnarbitrary and unjust the religious values underpinning thenworthiness of marriage, family, and child-rearing.nHomosexual writers for some time have been critical ofnJudaism and Christianity because of what C.A. Trippntermed their “reactionary, anti-sexual” moral values. AndnDennis Altman complained that “sex has been firmlynlinked, and nowhere more firmly than in Christian theology,nwith the institution of the family and with child-bearing. Sexnis thus legitimized for its utilitarian principles, rather than asnan end in itself, and marriage becomes a ‘sacred partnership’nentered into for the begetting of children. Even wherensexual pleasure is accepted as a complementary goal, thenconnection between marriage and sex remains.” Outragednby the religious support given to marriage and family at thenexpense of mere sexuality, homosexual writers argued fornrecognizing the “bisexual needs of human beings,” and theynbemoan the fact that Greek paganism, with its morenopen-minded view of homosexuality, was ever supplantednby Christianity and Judaism.nThe kind of polymorphous sexuality to which he refers isntruly typical only of very young children (who outgrow it).nAs far as scientific evidence goes, human beings havenneither polymorphous nor bisexual needs. Yet, nothingnseems to deter homosexuals from arguing as they wish tonconvince society that their goal of attaining moral approbationnfor perversion is a just one. This has been made all theneasier for them with the waning influence of religion in annage when unbridled relativism and a narcissistic individualismnhave become the reigning standards.n